ATLANTA'S POSTWAR SCHOOLS

By IRA JARRELL

Superintendent of Schools

When we realize that it has been 20 years since Atlanta schools have had a building program of major proportions, we can, understand the need for additional classrooms, cafeterias, and the modernizing of our school buildings.

In 25 years, many changes have occurred. Since 1921, when there was a $4,000.000 bond issue for schools and the annual enrollment was 37,772, a complete survey of the school system was made and many new buildings and additions were built. Changes have been made, too, in the curriculum, notably kindergartens and junior high schools being added since that time. That this bond issue was insufficient to care for even the immediate building needs of the growing school system was so apparent that in 1926, five years later, the people voted a $3,500.000 bond issue for school purposes. The enrollment by this time had increased to 56,254. In 1926, it was felt that for a few years at least the school building problem had been solved. That may have been true for a FEW years, but we do not believe the 1926 citizens intended for that building program to extend for 20 years. However, with the assistance of the Federal Government which furnished CWA and WPA labor and with the addition of approximately $350,000 from a very small bond issue and current funds, the schools have been kept in much better condition than the 1926 school planners could have anticipated.

During this period when we have spent so little for new buildings or for additions to present structures, the enrollment reached a peak of 69,530 in 1935. It declined slowly for the next few years, reaching 56,069 in 1944. The decline since 1941 has been due to two factors (other than the declining birth rate)--the 17- and 18- year-old boys going into the armed services, and many undergraduates going to work. In 1945, however, the trend is upward again--the annual enrollment, for the school year just completed being nearly 58,000. The greatly increased birth rate for the past few years, together with the opinions of competent authorities of the influx of newcomers to Atlanta in the immediate postwar period, combine, to give credence to our estimates of greatly increased enrollment in Atlanta schools in the next 10 years.

In planning for the growth of Atlanta's school system, we have tried to make the program flexible enough to take care of all contingencies. It is impossible to forecast developments that do not have an established precedent. For instance, when the Strayer-Elngelhardt survey of the Atlanta schools' needs was made in 1922, one of the recommendations was the abolition of the Fair Street School (now known as the Ed S. Cook School). At that time, the dwindling enrollment did not seem to warrant replacement of the school at this location. The present building, originally planned for an enrollment of less than 400, now houses--in the 1912 building in portables, in basement rooms, in the community center, and in double session classes--an active enrollment of 803. There was no way to forecast the Capitol Homes Housing Project, but the children are there, and we must provide suitable school facilities for them. Consequently, the Ed S. Cook School, far from being abolished, stands high on the priority list of school buildings to which additions will be built as soon as materials and labor are available.

Of the proposed building projects included in the program which it is estimated will cost over eight million dollars, seven have been selected as the most urgent. Architects have been selected for these buildings and additions to buildings and preliminary plans and specifications have been prepared, so that there will be no delay when we can finally begin our building program. These include:

The total program includes additional junior-senior high schools, gymnasiums at four of our present junior high schools; auditoriums and cafeterias for four of our present Negro elementary schools; at least 50 additional classrooms to existing Negro elementary schools; additional classrooms at David T.Howard Junior High School for Negroes; auditorium-gymnasium-cafeteria at Girls' HighSchool, and numerous other additions, classrooms, cafeterias, auditoriums and alterations. Recent publicity indicates the widespread agreement on the need in this community of an area vocational school. Plans for two such schools, one for white students and one for Negroes, are included in the proposed building program.

For a number of years, Atlanta's citizens have been embarrassed and mortified that her high school boys have been attending the last years of their public school career in portable, wooden structures--unsightly, insanitary, unsafe. We have heard about our two junior high schools which were composed completely of portable structures--one remains today, the other was destroyed by fire, which broke out, fortunately, on Sunday, when school was not in session. It may well be to point out, too, that portable buildings are used not only for a senior high school, and a junior high school, but throughout the whole school system, eight cafeterias, 12 auditoriums, and 10 gymnasiums are portable buildings. There are 116 classrooms which are entirely wooden portables, which means that one out of every ten children enrolled in Atlanta's schools must housed in a wooden portable building.

The double session situation is also a source of embarrassment and regret to the people of Atlanta. This semester, 8,385 of Atlanta's children attend what we call double session classes. Actually this means that over 8,000 students are trying to crowd into part of a day all the school program upon which the other members of the school population spend their full school day. By far the greater number of students attending doubles sessions are Negroes.

While the proposed building program is not a panacea for all the ills of the Atlanta School System, we hope it will remedy at least the two just mentioned--portable buildings and double sessions.

In spite of physical handicaps, our educational opportunities for the children have consistently improved. While we have not been able to accomplish all the educational goals we have set for ourselves, and while we are far from being the ideal. school system we should like to be, let it be, remembered that one of the foremost educational authorities in the nation a few years ago, listed the Atlanta Public School System as one of the twelve outstanding school systems in the United States. We are proud of this compliment, and always strive to give Atlanta's children the very best in educational offering. We have an excellent corps of professionally-minded teachers, a steadily improving curriculum, and a good school program. We need some additional buildings and alterations to our schools, and we will get them--of that we are confident. Nothing is too good, for Atlanta's children.

source: Atlanta Journal Magazine, September 30, 1945